Thanks very much,

Nice to get reassurance. With a negative reaction like Buster gave we were a little bit worried! We will look at moving Mylo to another room so we can get some quality time with him. To his credit though he seems completely not bothered about any of Busters actions, he just continues hopping around the pen and playing with his toys ?. He’s probably the most chilled out rabbit I’ve ever met.

I’ll thread updated with how we get on!

Ollie

I won’t count my chickens but buster seems a little calmer this afternoon. Mylo has started pooing everywhere which I guess is him asserting his territory. We are putting it all in the litter box in the hope he’ll start using it. Buster was pretty good with the litter tray right from the word go but Mylo is weeing and pooing at random!

So day 2….

The morning has started with Buster being aggressive as usual. Shaking the pen and boxing it, obviously still has Murder on his mind. We are monitoring Mylo and he doesn’t seem scared at all, he’s his usual chilled out self and just hops around eating hay and enjoying himself whilst the angry rabbit shakes the cage. Talk about chalk and cheese!

How long can we expect the aggression to go on for on average? I realise it varies from rabbit to rabbit.

Morning of day 3…

So normal running mostly yesterday. Mylo is still not using his litter box despite our best efforts. He’ll get it soon I’m sure… maybe not. He’s still very chilled out though and when we were bonding with him yesterday he kept licking our hands over and over and coming up for nose rubs, which I can only assume is a good sign! He had one slip yesterday when we was trying to say hello to buster through the cage and buster aggressively punched and shook the cage and I think Mylo lost his rag with Buster and rattled back. Buster is still showing no sign of reducing aggression. He’ll run up and down the cage side where Mylo is a few times then climb up and rattle. He does give up after a bit and come and chill/watch TV with us too though. Just as soon as Mylo makes a noise he’s straight back at him.poor little bunny! Buster seems worse in the mornings too. Mylo has been ok since then but has upped the chewing trying to get through to buster…. sigh.

We’ll get there in a week or two hopefully!

Yeah good point. He’s only doing it in the playpen which is good, we must have got lucky with buster on that front as he has always used a litter box from day 1! Buster has taken to destroying every toy he has with frustration ?

Morning of day 4.

We have one sad buster… he’s still having the odd rattle at the cage and trying to get his paws through to scratch but they are slightly less frequent (hopeful thinking). If Mylo makes any noise (rattling his cage for example) then he’s straight over to see what’s going on and that inevitably ends up with a attempt to murder Mylo. Mostly though when he’s out of his pen on is side of the lounge he is laying on the floor stretched out ignoring us nasty humans and watching tv when we do or he’s taken to lying down ears all the way back in his hutch. Presumably to get away from us (for being horrible humans for buying another rabbit) and Mylo!

One week in!

Well Mylo has adjusted to his new home and had his vaccinations today. Although the vet found his penis, she couldn’t find any sign of his testes which confused her…. maybe Mylo will turn out to be a millie…. we’ll see!

Buster has been generally ok recently and has decided to attack the pen on the other side to Mylo instead but there are still a few rattles on his side when he sees Mylo. This morning however when they were both out in their respective sides (seperated by a single layer fence) I was sat with Mylo and buster came and laid down by the side of the fence and could definitely see Mylo. Don’t know whether this is progress or he was just jealous of me playing with Mylo but we’ll see!

Yeah she is. She said that he might have done that as he said that it definitely was boy bits and not girl bits! He’s coming on 10 weeks old so still young…means we have the teenage years to get through soon!

I hope it is a sign of things to come with Buster, time will tell. I think it’s helped that I’ve satisfied myself that buster can’t get to Mylo through the cages as they are next to each other so instead of keeping Mylo in he’s out in his playpen full time as well so they are getting a little more interaction.

Yeah she is. She said that he might have done that as he said that it definitely was boy bits and not girl bits! He’s coming on 10 weeks old so still young…means we have the teenage years to get through soon!

I hope it is a sign of things to come with Buster, time will tell. I think it’s helped that I’ve satisfied myself that buster can’t get to Mylo through the cages as they are next to each other so instead of keeping Mylo in he’s out in his playpen full time as well so they are getting a little more interaction.

Another update,

Things are currently going well! I won’t count my chickens yet. Busters aggression has pretty much stopped completely which is great. The first thing he does when he’s let out into the lounge is go to the divider to mylos half and sit waiting for him. It’s the only location where the pen is only single width so there has been some nose rubbing going on between them. There was a bit of nipping by buster initially but that has stopped and we always kept a close eye. Not ideal having single thickness but we didn’t have a choice due to how the playpen layout is. However now buster spends a bit of time flopping against the pen (we had never seen him flop till we got Mylo) and Mylo spends most of the time either giving him a quick sniff on the nose or sitting with his back to him ?.

I think it’s going well so far, just got to wait for Mylo to be able to get the chop so we can move things forward in a couple of months time.

Forgot to say we have been swapping their litter trays and toys and neither have been bothered at all, which is great.

A quick update after a couple more weeks! Mylo is growing up fast, no sign of any boy bits yet though! Buster is generally ok but as soon as he is out of the pen he’s straight to the single fence that seperates their free play parts of the lounge. They have about one meeting a day through the bars and it usually starts with some nose touching and ends with buster swiping at Mylo which is a little distressing. Mylo never used to care but he has swiped back once or twice. Not ideal but I know he’s not neutered yet which we will do as soon as possible.

I worry a little that they will hate each other (more buster hating just about everything ?) before we even get to start bonding!

Buster doesn’t seem to be taking well to having another rabbit around. He spends a lot more time in his hutch and doesn’t really interact with us anymore, not that he was a rabbit that liked being touched at all. So hard to tell whether he’s depressed or annoyed at us!

Yes agreed. Need to buy more fencing. The lounge looks like a prison!

Week 6 (is it only that long!).

Nothing much to update. We have solved the contact issue by buying a large piece of Perspex to separate the rabbits in their ‘free roam’ areas instead of a half height bit of wood. Both rabbits have met each other through the Perspex and the interesting thing is that all busters aggression has gone. Now they can’t touch each other and buster can see him properly it seems to have calmed him down. Thanks for the advice on that one!

In other news Mylo is booked in for the chop on the 5th so looking forward to starting some pre bonding once he’s recovered from the op. He’s getting big!

Tried to upload some photos but no succsss yet!

Mylos big day tomorrow. Still haven’t been able to see his bits but hopefully they will have dropped and they are just well hidden!

They are existing together fairly peacefully. I have started putting their food bowls next to the Perspex fence at dinner time so that they eat together and facing each other and neither seem to be bothered. They munch away happily. Tonight for the first time they’ve both flopped up against the Perspex. They’re facing away from each other and at opposite ends but it’s a start I guess.

Still trying to upload photos but keep getting ‘file type not permitted’ which is a little annoying. Photos are within size limitations. Don’t have a computer so will have to try uploading some from work.

Hi everyone,

Good news, Mylos neuter went really well. He was a bit sleepy yesterday but was back to his normal self this morning.

Is it possible for the post neuter craze to start immediately as he has gone little bit crazy this evening? He’s been quite aggressive to buster across the fence (can’t get to each other) and has started humping the stuffed toy that we keep swapping between pens. He’s groomed it before but never humped it. Head humping too which I know is a no go for the actual bonding when we get to it.

Now we have two mad rabbits ?

Another week, another update! Mylo has recovered well after his neuter, still a bit mad but settling down.

Going to start proper pre bonding next week. We’ve been swapping toys and litter trays and they haven’t been bothered so going to start swapping cages daily, I’m guessing that you want to not clean the areas between each swap so they get each other’s scent? I’m guessing we can expect some foot stomping and general unhappiness from both when we swap their areas?

I’ll let you know how it goes!

So last night we swapped the rabbits round in their areas for the first time…

Mylo just hopped around and explored everywhere chinning everything. Buster however has gone totally insane that there is another bunny where he used to live. We haven’t got a minutes sleep as he’s been running around all night rattling the pen aggressively etc. He’s up ended his litter tray all over the floor, he’s not happy!

Do we persist and let him stay like that or put them back in their own halves?

It’s like it’s back to square 1 again. Buster is throwing himself at the fence to get to Mylo and is snorting at him. ? just don’t know how these two are ever going to get on if buster is still like this after 3 months!

Ok. Thanks so much for the reassurance, my other half was pretty much in tears last night!

I’ll keep you updated

Thank you so much for your advice last week. As you said over the week their aggression has died down and even though they still get annoyed when we swap areas (natural I guess!) most of the aggression has gone already. Just waiting for them to start lying next to each other by the bars and mirroring movements.

Hopefully they’ll be ready to have a first session in a couple of weeks. Aiming for the weekend of the 14th April. Will be 6 weeks since Mylos neuter so should be ok…?

So tomorrow is the big day. We’ve got some nice food to keep them occupied and we are going to go for the first meet. We’ve been deciding where to do it having seen some people use large areas and some small. We’ve decided we’ll use the bathtub as it’ll be hard for them to actually do any damage to each other if the worst happens as it’s slippy for them.

All we need now is to get them there, both hate being picked up so might be a carrier job.

Well that wasn’t stressful at all… sort of.

Got some nice hay, pellets, carrot and lettuce in a pile in the bath. Took both bunnies up and released them at the same time. For the first 5 minutes they just ignored each other. Mylo started eating the lettuce and Buster just explored. We had no humping but mylo asked to be groomed which buster didn’t like so that ended in a short scuffle which stopped as soon as the oven glove came down. Other than some snorting from Buster when their heads were near each other, a few small nips and a couple of small scuffles all went fairly well I think?

We stopped after 10 minutes when they were ignoring each other again to end on as good as note as we could.

Should we do the next bonding session tomorrow? Same place or a bigger area? Don’t want to run out of neutral space.

Exciting yet terrifying!

That’s great, thank you.

One question I have is how far do we let the scuffles go? Should we intervene straight away or just let them get on with it for a short period of time? Obviously if there is damage going to be done intervene but if it’s a minor scuffle do we see if it reaches a conclusion within a couple of seconds or interrupt them as soon as it starts?

Day 2 of bonding.

Eventually got the bunnies in the bath (buster really does not like being picked up!) and it pretty much started where it ended yesterday.

After a bit of solid ignoring there were a few face to face meetings involving some thumping from mylo and some snorting from buster and a few nips and scratches. However each one of these was very short lived. Only a second or two. After a bit of both of them asking to be groomed Buster nipped mylos ear but then to our complete surprise after all his aggressiveness he started grooming mylos head! This went on for about 3 minutes then buster stopped. Mylo stayed where he was but looked around for a bit before both asked to be groomed again nose to nose. I thought this was going to end in a fight again for sure but Buster groomed Mylo for another couple of minutes!

At this point once it stopped again Buster started grooming himself so I decided that this was way better already than I’d expected so we put them back in the hutch.

Progress, although not clear who is the dominant one to me? No humping and Buster was the only one doing any nipping but also the only one grooming? Random bunnies!

Day Three of bonding.

In the bathtub again. Started positively with buster going straight to groom Mylo. No reciprocal grooming however so a few little scuffles broke out which were stopped fairly quickly. Thought it was going to be a bad session but every time buster asked to be groomed mylo wouldn’t (think mylo is a little scared of buster to be honest) we just groomed buster for him to hopefully stop the fights. Seemed to work and by the end both seemed fairly happy, not too relaxed and buster did some more grooming but I think we need to try the banana on head trick so that Mylo gives some grooming back.

I was thinking of using a slightly larger space tomorrow so that Mylo can get away from buster. He was sort of cornered today and buster didn’t seem to like him moving near him. I think he’s nervous still as well which is causing the aggression.

Day 4.

Switched from the bathtub to the floor just to give a bit more space. Haven’t seen much progress and there isn’t any signs of chilling out yet.

Buster seems to want to continuously groom mylo, to the extent that mylo seems to be getting annoyed with it as he’ll move away but buster just follows him and starts grooming again! Is there anything we can do about this?

In the larger area just seems to be a bit of kiss chase too where mylo hops around and buster is following him wherever he goes!

Any advice on how to proceed past this stage and get buster to leave mylo alone a bit to reduce the irritation?

Ollie

Hi all,

Just an update. We took a break from bonding as we couldn’t get a run at it but restarted 2 weeks ago. We started from the beginning again in the bathtub and they have got on throughout. We moved into the downstairs loo first and tonight the kitchen.

We have been building up the sessions in time and there has been no fighting. All sessions involve mylo asking for lots of grooming and buster giving him it. Buster doesn’t really ask for grooms back and they’ve both been eating together and sitting in a hay box.

In the kitchen tonight though after the longest session yet for the first time Mylo humped buster who tried to run away but then Mylo mounted him back to front which we stopped quickly. From there it turned into a little bit of a chase and there was a little bit of fur pulling from buster on Mylo. Now mylos fur comes out very easily so I think it looked worse than it was but we separated them at this point and put them back in their areas in the lounge next to each other.

Buster is now laid next to the seperating fence and Mylo is doing his own thing so no harm done I think. Having read lots and lots of threads a bit of fighting is normal but I was concerned at the amount of fur that was coming out of Mylo (it comes out quite easily and he’s very fluffy).

Still on track do you reckon and do another session in the kitchen tomorrow?

Hello all,

After the small scuffle between the buns the day before yesterday’s session was a bit shorter. We did 40 minutes with no fighting, just the usual (slightly aggressive!) grooming from buster.

We had a box full of hay in the middle and they were doing a one hop out one hop in thing and buster seemed initially to claim it at his with some grunting if Mylo came near but that settled down over time. By the end of the session they were both in the box eating hay together which quickly led into a both asking for grooming. So we stroked both. When buster had had enough he hopped away and we took the opportunity to stop.

Hopefully we are making progress but it’s taking a long time and we haven’t seen too many positive signs yet. There’s been no flopping and they still seem unsure of each other despite living next to each other for the last 4 months!